


If my family tree goes back

by robotwitch



Series: Once more for the ages [26]
Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Family Secrets, Gen, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-23 19:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19157824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotwitch/pseuds/robotwitch
Summary: Though Nate and Elena have plenty of adventures to tell Cassie about, there are some harder truths she must hear too.





	If my family tree goes back

Cassie doesn’t remember that cabinet coming with them from New Orleans.  Not that she remembers much about the old house, but she thinks she would’ve remembered something so massive coming with them.

Standing on tiptoe, she tries the handle.  It jiggles but doesn’t open.

She rattles it again just in case it’s stuck.  Still nothing.

Her imagination starts to run wild with what her parents could be keeping in there.  Her birthday _is_ coming up pretty soon after all.  It makes her all the more impatient to see inside.

But her birthday comes and goes, and the cabinet remains closed.  Mom and dad pull a new boogie board and wetsuit out of the back of their closet, which Cassie guesses could’ve fit in the cabinet as long as there aren’t any shelves in it.

Mom asks Cassie to fetch her camera from the dark room, when Cassie sees the cabinet open for the first time.

Doors wide and blocking her view inside, dad digs around muttering to himself, “Come on.  I know it’s in here somewhere…”

Avoiding the creaky floorboards, Cassie tries to get a better look.

The most she sees are what look like prayer flags and a map tacked to the inside of the door before Vicky springs up behind her, barking madly, and alerting dad to her presence.

The cabinet shuts with a soft click.

Dad grins at her, “Ready to get going, Cassie?”

“Kawaikini awaits!”  Her enthusiasm is a little forced, but it disguises her disappointment and dad seems to buy it.

Pulling his keys from his pocket, he locks the cabinet back up with a small key then wraps his arm around Cassie’s shoulders.  “Then let’s not keep your mom waiting.”

\----------

She gets used to the lingering tug at the back of her mind, wondering what’s in the cabinet, but for the most part, Cassie can forget about it.

Unless, of course, she’s watching over mom and dad’s shoulders as they work on research for their next dig.  Dad’s got maps of the Himalayas spread out across the worktable while Cassie plugs away at her math worksheets.

Every time she glances up, the cabinet looms behind dad.  Silently taunting her with its secrets.

“Gotta a question, kiddo?”

“Huh?”

“You’ve been spacing out for a few minutes now.”

“Oh.  Sorry.”

Dad makes a face like she doesn’t need to apologize but doesn’t tell her not to.

Cassie tries to refocus on her homework, but it’s no use.  She groans, frustrated, and pushes it away.  Nodding in the direction of the cabinet, “What do you keep in there?”

Dad does a double take between Cassie and the cabinet.  Shaking his head, “Just boring old books and papers.”

“If it’s just a bunch of old boring stuff, why do you keep it locked up?”

Again, dad makes a face; more screwed up this time, like he’s debating with himself.  The longer he’s silent, the more Cassie feels like she’s about to burst.

Snapping out of his trance, “I’ll explain when you’re older.”

Just plain snapping, “Seriously?”

“Cassandra.”

Cassie’s taken aback.  Dad _never_ uses her full name.

He instantly regrets it, “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to –” What he didn’t mean to do is lost to another silence.

Shaking her head, “It’s okay, dad.”

Except it’s not.  Whatever’s in the cabinet, dad’s not himself.  She doesn’t like this version of him.  She wishes she had just held her tongue and not asked at all.

\----------

They stay out way longer than intended.  They’re definitely gonna be sunburnt by the time they get back, but Cassie doesn’t care.  She’s never seen this side of her parents.

Well, that might be a stretch.  They’ve always been… eccentric.  None of her friends’ parents have their own show where they uncover the world’s greatest treasures and lost history.  But this is still somehow different from all that.

It’s like something out of those old movies mom loves so much.  It’s almost enough to explain how mom fell in love with someone as embarrassing as dad in the first place.

“I can’t believe you just let El Dorado sink to the bottom of the sea!”

“Were you not listening?  There was a cursed mummy inside it.”

“Dad come on.  Curses aren’t real,” she looks at mom to back her up.

But mom’s no help on this one.  “He’s telling the truth.  I saw it happen with my own eyes.”

“You guys are so full of crap!”

Vicky barks with the same vehemence.

Mom casts a glance at dad, “See?  What did I tell you?  She doesn’t even believe us.”

Dad rolls his eyes, “Alright.  You win, Elena.  This season’s paperwork is on me.”

She can’t believe mom and dad made one of their stupid bets about this either.  But neither of them is backing down on their bullshit story of how they met.

“You’ve both completely lost it.”

Dad chuckles, “Heard that a few times in my day, doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Oh, come on.  You really expect me to believe either of you knows how to operate a gun?”

“It’s like a camera,” mom says simply.  “You just point and shoot.”

Cassie’s stomach churns; she would give anything for it to be seasickness, but it’s the truth sinking into her stomach like a stone.

The shotgun in the photo, the holster in the cabinet – Dad barely knows how to operate a phone; he shouldn’t know how to fire a gun.  Mom is more competent with technology, but Cassie can’t picture her shooting anything that isn’t film.

She thought she could be cool about their shady past, but Cassie’s almost definitely sure she’s going to be sick.

Trying to swallow it back down, “So you were a _real_ treasure hunter – graverobber, whatever.”

“Yeah,” dad nods.  “Sam and I fancied ourselves explorers, but really, we were just thieves – landed us both in prison more than a couple times.”

It’s the worst kept family secret that Sam spent thirteen years in prison, nobody’s ever told her why before.  But she can’t imagine any theft that would warrant thirteen years – in any country.

Desperate for some sort of confirmation, “Mom?”

Gently, “It’s true.”

Cassie’s head is spinning.  She’s not sure she wants the answer to this question, but she has to ask, “Does that mean you and Sam have killed people?”

Dad’s face goes grey.  “Yeah.”

“Me too,” mom steps in, not letting dad take all the blame for himself.

“Lots of people?”

“Yeah, but only in self-defense and never in cold blood,” dad tries to ease the notion.

“That doesn’t make it any better,” Cassie snaps.

For a moment, there’s just the sounds of the ocean and the sails luffing in the wind.  Sensing her distress, Vicky nudges Cassie’s knee with her nose and whines.

Dad breathes deep, “I know.  Why do you think we waited so long to tell you?  As thrilling as that life was, it was also extremely dangerous and riddled with bad decisions.”

“You can say that again,” she scoffs.  “What else aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s all one long story, Cassie, and not all of it’s gonna be easy to hear.”

Cassie takes a deep breath of her own.  The salt air braces her for what could possibly be worse than finding out her parents, and uncle, and probably Sully too, have killed people in the pursuit of treasure.

The wind changes as Cassie stares out across the water, trying to process everything she’s been told.  She wants to be so angry with them, but when she faces them again, they’re still just mom and dad; loving and caring as always, but also maybe just a little bit more badass?

Tenuously, “Promise you’ll tell me everything, even the hard stuff.”

Dad crosses his heart, “Promise.”

“Okay.  Cause the sun’s still up and the wind’s still good.  What happened next?”

Mom and dad grin at each other then at her, before mom kicks the story off again, “I broke up with him.”

“You _what_?”

\----------

Through some miracle, they managed to save the world and got married, and that’s where mom and dad end the story of the moment.

Sailing right up to the dock, Vicky leaps out of the boat first and swims the rest of the way to the shore.  She barks frantically, kicking up sand as she darts back and forth.

Cassie chuckles, “She probably can’t remember where she buried her bone.”

“Incredible.  Even our dog likes searching for lost treasure,” dad smirks.

He stows the boat as Cassie helps mom carry the remains of their picnic at sea inside.  Cassie starts putting everything away, while mom picks up Sully’s letter and smiles at the picture of him and Sam.

Mostly to herself, “They’ll be relieved we’ve finally told you about the family business.”

“I can’t believe they both managed to keep it quiet all these years.”

Mom raises a brow, “You don’t think being an accomplished liar isn’t a prerequisite of being a thief?”

Cassie stops and considers it.  A single lie is one thing, but a continuous lie for thirteen years is something else completely.  Something must’ve slipped out over all that time, she just missed it.

Not that the lie was meant maliciously.  Mom and dad wanted to tell her in their own time in their own way, but it still hurts realizing they were all in on keeping her in the dark.  

“Besides, they’ve all had plenty of practice lying to your grandparents for years.”

“Dad too?”

“Nate too,” mom sighs.

Cassie hates the shiver mom’s tone sends down her spine.  “What did dad do?”

Mom puts down Sully’s letter and looks Cassie in the eye, “There are some things which you should hear from him, but twice we came close to divorce.”

Stunned, Cassie stares.  Mom and dad are a team, they work in perfect tandem.  That they ever broke up is hard enough for Cassie to grasp, but _divorce_.  As terrible a Catholic as dad is, she thought he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

Finally, “What happened?”

“He walked out, less than a year after we were married.”

“What?  Why?”

Mom shakes her head, “Those are questions better suited to him.”

“But he _came_ back.  You _took_ him back.”

“I did.  Twice.  And he has strived every day since to prove I made the right choice.”

“He left you _twice_?  What the hell made him leave a _second_ time?”

The porch creaks under dad’s approaching footsteps.  Cassie meets his eye as he walks through the door, his face falling like he already knows what they’re talking about.

Both of them frozen in place, mom gently nudges Cassie toward dad, “Go on.  I’ll be along in a minute.”

Even if her feet weren’t leaden, dad leads the way to the cabana with his long strides.

Cassie’s sprouted a few inches in the past couple of months, and she’ll probably catch mom within a year, but she’ll likely never see exactly eye-to-eye with dad.  She hates that the thought isn’t just about their height.

\----------

Settling down, dad makes a space for Cassie right beside him.

Ordinarily Cassie wouldn’t hesitate to curl up next to him, but she’s too nervous about what he has to say for himself.  She wants to see his face as he tells her he messed up; she wants to know for sure he’s not lying to her.

Dad fiddles with his wedding ring a bit before admitting, “I wasn’t always the best husband.  I’m not going to make excuses or try to sugarcoat it for you, it’s just – it’s just how it is.”

“What did you do?”

“Succumbed to a bad habit.”

“Treasure hunting?”

“Worse than that.  Repressing the truth, lying to everyone, including myself.”

He pauses, not looking at her or even his wedding ring, but out across the water.

Cassie swallows.  She doesn’t know how many more revelations and family secrets she can take today, but if she doesn’t let dad find the words now, she’s afraid he might never have the courage to tell her.

“The first of which is that we’re not Drakes.  Drake is just the name Sam and I chose when we ran away from the orphanage and then we let our imaginations run away with the notion we were his metaphorical heirs.”

The truth falls neatly into place.  Somewhere in the back of Cassie’s head, she’s always known Drake must be an assumed name.  Dad taught her too much about Francis Drake to believe they were really his descendants, but it was a fantasy she was willing to believe too.

She’s not willing to believe it was a good enough reason to walk out on mom.  “Why would that drive you away from mom?”

Dad hangs his head, “After we were married, I had a bit of an identity crisis.  Like Nathan Morgan was fighting to get out from Nathan Drake’s shadow.  But after Shambala, I was so terrified of losing your mom, I did the unthinkable.  I turned into my father and left.”

Cassie inhales sharply.  She’s only heard dad mention his father once, and only to tell her he had abandoned them, punctuated by Sam with an ‘asshole’.  But she’s never heard the name Nathan Morgan before.

“Where’d you even go?”

“The Rub’al Khali, searching for the Atlantis of the Sands, nearly getting Sully killed in the process.”

“That was stupid,” she chastises him.

Dad snorts, “Yeah, it was.”

Once Cassie understands now, but twice still eludes her.  “How come it happened again?”

Croaking, “Because Sam walked back into my life.  The whole time I knew Elena, I never told her I had a brother.  I thought he had died in prison, but then he was back, and he needed me.”

Cassie can feel the anger rising up inside her at both of them, “Then why didn’t you just tell her then?  How could you be so stupid _again_?”

Dad’s quiet for a long time.  When he finally speaks up, it’s not much of a defense, “Because I don’t think things through.  Never have.”

“Maybe you should start.”

Letting out a long sigh, “I’ve been trying, for years now.”

Cassie hates how well this day started and how it’ll end being as mad at dad as she’s ever been.  She hates how much she wanted to know what was locked in his cabinet.

“But it’s fighting against my nature.  And I don’t mean following my father’s bad example.  I mean following in my mom’s footsteps.”

Her heart leaps.  Despite being named for her, Cassie knows next to nothing about her deceased grandmother.

“Cassandra Morgan was a brilliant woman.  An astounding researcher and historian – the journal you found, one of hers.  But she was trapped – trapped in a loveless marriage, raising the two of us basically on her own, and it destroyed her.”

Dad’s not making any sense.

“Destroyed her?  I don’t understand.”

“She was severely depressed, Cassie.  And as much as we loved her, it wasn’t enough.  She wasn’t getting the help she needed, and she took her own life.”

Hands over her mouth, Cassie holds back a sob, but it’s not enough to stop the stream of tears already spilling down her face.

Unable to keep his distance any longer, dad wraps her up in a warm embrace.  Angry as she is, Cassie clings to dad for dear life, burying her face in his shoulder.

Caressing her back, he gently keeps going, “I didn’t realize I’d been struggling with the same thing my whole life.  I repressed it like I did Sam’s ‘death’, until Elena put the pieces together.”

“Don’t you dare – don’t you dare –” is all she can manage to get out.

“I won’t.”

They stay like that until the sun has practically set, dad stroking her hair.  She pulls back to see he’s been crying too.

Remorse isn’t something Cassie thought he was hanging onto all these years, but it’s so obvious to her now, she can’t continue to be angry with him.  It doesn’t make all the rest go away, but she forgives him.

\----------

They don’t immediately jump back into the story when mom rejoins them.

She settles down on Cassie’s other side and drapes her arm over her shoulders, “How’re you holding up, sweetheart?”

“Better than I thought I would,” Cassie admits.

Dad nods in agreement, “Discussing therapy and medication, just in case.”

Cassie feels a little oblivious for not realizing before that dad was being treated for depression her whole life.  But then lots of people she knows go to therapy, even some of her friends.  She really feels stupid for thinking dad’s pills were for generic old people ailments; dad’s not _that_ old and probably in better health than most people his age, save his hearing.

Mom gives her a little squeeze, “Good.  And just as a reminder, you can come talk to us about anything.  We’re here for you.”

“I know that, mom.”

“I know you do,” she kisses Cassie’s temple anyway.

Honestly, with all this talk, she’s feeling a little smothered by their love.  She knows they’re just looking out for her, covering all their bases, but she’s ready for them to be themselves again.

Prodding them, “I’d still like to hear about the rest of your adventures, now that we’ve covered all the hard stuff.”

Dad ruffles her hair, “Sure thing, kid.  Now, where did we leave off?”

It takes well into the night for them to finish telling her their tale.

The countless stars gleam up above like the number of things she still doesn’t know about her parents, but it’s a comfort to know, they’ll be there for her, no matter what.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a crossover of Naughty Dog properties, an alternate universe where there is no Cordyceps Brain Infection outbreak and everyone lives. Both the Uncharted and The Last of Us characters are here and very much alive, (eventually) brought together through Cassie and Ellie's chance meeting at summer camp.


End file.
